CROWNPOINT, N.M. — For many Americans, the Easter holiday brings back good memories of time with family, delicious food, childhoods full of candy and Easter egg hunts. So on "Easter Wednesday," four days before the religious holiday, the employee association at the Crownpoint Indian Health Service decided to do something uplifting for staff members by hosting the "Indian Health Service's First Annual Easter Egg Festival."
"It was rough competition," said Quan Lee, an intern pharmacy student, of the employee Easter egg hunt.
"Some people resorted to pushing and throwing dirt in my eyes," he said, laughing, making other people around him laugh. "Good spirit, good spirit."
The festival featured an Easter egg decorating contest, an Easter cake decorating contest and an egg hunt especially for the IHS staff.
Health systems specialist Ra'el Augare-Deal is the employee association president. Her job in that role is to plan events and social outings with the association for the IHS staff.
The purpose of the festival was "to get the employees out, out in the sunlight and let them hunt eggs and let them run around a little bit," Augare-Deal said.
The association's goal is to make the staff at Crownpoint feel comfortable and happy so the employees may better serve the patients, said Augare-Deal.
On March 19, Augare-Deal was busy getting together colored eggs and prize baskets for the egg hunt. Augare-Deal and a few members of the association hid eggs in front of the hospital's entrance. "We got a good group of people together who are really in it to help make this a better place to work," Augare-Deal said of the association members.
In a long hallway, tables were set up with Easter-themed cakes and decorated eggs from each department in the hospital. The hallway became crowded as people came out for their lunch breaks to judge the cakes and eggs. They said, "Oh how cute," at the law enforcement egg from the security department, at the yellow chicks with tiny charts from the medical records department, or at any of the little egg and cake displays.
An announcement over the intercom told the hospital staff that the egg hunt would start at 2:30 p.m. Uniformed nurses, assistants, interns and other staff members came out and lined up at the front of the hospital. They waited, ready with plastic bags and empty egg cartons to run out and snatch up as many eggs as they could.
"Go!" someone shouted. All the uniformed medical care staff ran out to the hunting ground like children and filled their bags and cartons with real and candy-filled plastic eggs.
For Marsett Jake, a dental assistant, who has been at Crownpoint for nine years, the Easter festivities were a fun time. She would like to see it again next year, she said.
"I had to sneak out," Jake said jokingly. "It was fun, I got to work out a little bit, bending down."
Lee said he doesn't often see events like this. "I see a lot of participation here, which is great," he said. Lee won the prize for being the male with the most eggs at the end of the hunt.
In a small town and in this small IHS facility, Easter is cause for more than just cakes, sweets and egg hunts. It's an event that brings the staff together to make the public's visit more enjoyable.